Friday, May 27, 2011

I just drank a delicious quart of fresh squeezed orange pineapple juice, the kids are watching Carebears II for the billionth time (we've all got the movie memorized start to finish), the baby is happily making her panda friends play on their exersaucer teeter totter, hubby is doing something on his computer (probably in a Honda Ruckus forum geeking out over some type of make-it-sound-louder or get-it-to-reach-42-mph something or other), and here I am... flashing back.

Oh, and if you're at all interested in making fun of my silly Texas accent (I guess I've been away from the PNW for wayyy too long, huh? -it gets thicker when I'm nervous and when I really get to talking), then feel free to click over to yesterdays blog, to watch my very first vlog.I won't blame you if you don't watch all 10 minutes of it.

...I couldn't really think of much today, to go back in time to look at. I didn't want to go dig through my piles and piles of loose photos out in the pantry, and to be honest, I didn't really want to get off the couch. So looking through the files on my computer, I found some old pictures of Christopher and Eleanore mowing the lawn, from about 3 year ago.

This was before we lived in the house that we live in now. We lived on the other end of base, in the yucko stucco housing. There were gaps under our doors, the windows would either get stuck when we opened them, or get stuck while closed, not letting us open them up at all. And did I mention there were scorpions in the house? Not, fun. But, it was our first non apartment, and for the short 6 months that we lived there, it was our home.

Eleanore used to like to help Daddy mow the lawn. Even if it was way too hot outside and her cheeks turned bright pink. Also, as I was looking at these pictures, I remembered when we only had to provide clothing for one child, rather than three. Eleanore had much cuter clothes back then. Pretty dresses with floral patterns, polka dots, and stripes. Nowadays all the kids end up wearing whatever I can pick up for $2 at Target or Walmart, or whatever I come across at a garage sale, even if it has a hole or stain from its previous owner. But sometimes we really luck out, and somebody somewhere, a good friend or family member, sends us a box of t shirts and shorts, maybe pajamas, with the babies in mind. Thank you,

And now I feel a little bit of mom guilt.

But we've got our priorities, right? Eating healthy food and preserving memories is more important than wearing flashy clothes? ...well I can get away with that for now, at least. And maybe if I deal my cards right, and prepare my pineapple perfectly, the kids won't care that they're wearing a shirt from 1988, that was sewn for a short stubby kid, rather than a miniature sasquatch, instead of getting to go waste their very small amount of college fund money on whatever it is that every other kid is wearing.

Also, we need to mow the lawn today. 100 degrees or not.

***************************So heres what we do. Every week we dig through our memories- old cell phone pictures, polaroids from 1986, something that you pulled out of a dirty shoe box- and we flashback to it. We show it off, and we write about it. We take ourselves back to that place, with as little or as much detail as our hearts are willing to share. Scan it, upload it, copy and paste it from your livejournal(remember those?)- display your memories in whatever way works for you. And then grab out button way down at the bottom of the page there (or link back old fashioned text style), add it to your flashback, add your link to our flashback, and if you've got an extra minute- maybe browse around and read some of the flashbacks left by others. Its just for fun. And really- memories are too precious to be left in an old dirty shoe box.